‘The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment’

The 2007 photo starting doing rounds online after it was posted on Pusha T’s Instagram and Soundcloud, as the artwork to Push’s latest diss track taking aim at Drake. “The Story of Adidon” claimed that Drake has a secret son, a team of ghost writers, and that he is “always afraid he (isn’t) black enough”. Before releasing another diss track, Drake took to Instagram to clarify why there are pictures of him in blackface.

“I know everyone is enjoying the circus but I want to clarify this image in question,” he wrote on his Notes app, and shared via Instagram Story. “I was working on a project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast. The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment.”

He continued: “Me and my best friend at the time Mazin Elsadig who is also an actor from Sudan were attempting to use our voice to bring awareness to the issues we dealt with all the time as black actors at auditions.”

Previous reports suggested the photos were from a clothing brand shoot, but Drake insisted this was wrong. The picture was originally taken by photographer David Leyes, whose website captioned the photo as “Drake Us And Them”.

Pusha T tweeted about the photo after he released the track, saying: “Please stop referring to this picture as ‘artwork’…I’m not an internet baby, I don’t edit images…this is a REAL picture…these are his truths, see for yourself.”

Update: Pusha T has since responded to Drake's statement: “I don't believe it at all,” Pusha said on Real 92.3. “You are silent on all black issues, Drake, with a huge platform.”